Germany and UK outperform the rest of Europe when it comes to online bank account openings - new report reveals

by Simon Kelman

"Twice the proportion of accounts have been opened online in Germany & the UK compared to other European countries such as Spain, France & Italy"

"Two thirds of Spanish consumers still open new accounts in branch"

London, UK, – June 26, 2017 – Leading identity confirmation provider HooYu today released the results of a European study into the adoption of online bank account openings. HooYu has produced a league table of online account openings across Europe – a key indicator of a bank’s digital performance.

The study, conducted by GlobalData, surveyed banks in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and France to gain insight into account opening processes. Whilst all of the banks reported a decrease in branch-led account opening, the UK and Germany have seen their online customer acquisition channels grow significantly faster than their European peers.

The percentage of online account openings in Germany and the UK is over twice as high as the amount of customers embracing online in Spain, with 40% of German customers and 38% of UK customers opening new accounts online compared to just 19% of Spanish customers. In France, just 21% of accounts are opened online, whilst in Italy the trend is slightly higher at 23%.

The digital divide between European banks is in part due to the availability of identity verification databases in the UK and Germany that can support online account opening, whilst countries such as Spain, France and Italy do not have database identity checks.

HooYu is designed to help banks to verify and on-board customers where database verification is not an option. David Pope, Director of Marketing at HooYu commented, “Financial services and banking clients using HooYu to verify their customers are seeing a huge uplift in their digital customer acquisition channels. UK banks seeking to acquire “new to country customers” and European banks seeking to comply with the new Money Laundering Directives can now create a digital journey that verifies and welcomes customers at point of application, rather than having to ask customers to go through a secondary process before their account is opened.”

HooYu is a global identity confirmation platform to help financial services firms authenticate customer identity at the point of online application. HooYu's approach is to use universal tokens of identity including identity documents, proof of address documents, social media, digital footprints, facial biometrics and PEPs and Sanctions checks to confirm identity.

HooYu extracts and verifies data from ID documents at the same time as authenticating the ID document and conducting a biometric facial check comparing a selfie of the customer with the facial image on their ID document. HooYu also cross-references and analyses data from a person’s digital footprint to confirm their real-world identity.

To find out where the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany rank when it comes to online account openings, email Vicky Brien at vicky.brien@hooyu.com to receive a copy of the report.

About HooYu

HooYu is a global identity confirmation service used not only by businesses that need to check their customers are who they say they are, but also by consumers who want to check another person’s identity before they proceed with an important or sensitive transaction.

HooYu's approach is to use universal tokens of identity including social media, digital footprints, identity documents and facial biometrics to confirm identity.

HooYu cross-references and analyses data from a person’s digital footprint to confirm their real-world identity. HooYu also extracts and verifies data from ID documents at the same time as authenticating the ID document and conducting a biometric facial check comparing a selfie of the customer with the facial image on their ID document.